Our Teams

Our Teams

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  • Our Teams

Meet the East Midlands Councils team.

Stuart Young

Executive Director

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Stuart is the chief officer at East Midlands Councils and responsible for oversight and management across the organisation. With overall responsibility for EMC’s budget, employees and work programme, the Executive Director is ultimately accountable for ensuring EMC meets its commitments for the delivery of services and wider advisory support offered by the organisation.

Acting as its principal advisor, and directly accountable to EMC Executive Board, Stuart works with councillors and chief officers across the region, the business and voluntary/community sector as well as taking a lead in ensuring effective partnership with government departments and other national/regional organisations.

Policy and Infrastructure Team

Andrew Pritchard

Director of Policy & Infrastructure

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Andrew is responsible for EMC’s work on infrastructure, growth and transport – including the Rail Collaboration Agreement with the DfT. Andrew is the principal advisor to Transport for the East Midlands (TfEM) chaired by the Mayor of Leicester Sir Peter Soulsby. Andrew is also the professional lead for the EMCs Low-Cost CPD programme for planners. In addition, he provides policy support to Midlands Connect, the sub-national transport body for the Midlands, and to the All Party Parliamentary Group for the East Midlands.

Kyle Butterworth

Head of Rail Improvement

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Kyle leads on the region's interface with the Department for Transport at a senior level, enabling regional input into rail operational developments in the East Midlands. Kyle also facilitates wider rail industry engagement across the region to partner with Midlands Connect on long-term strategic plans; supports East Midlands LTAs directly with their rail ambitions; inputs to the regional rail construction programmes through DfT Infrastructure teams and Network Rail; and finally listens to focused stakeholder groups such as Railfuture and Rail Forum.

HR, Learning & Development and Councillor Development Team

Sam Maher

Director of HR, Learning and Development
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Sam’s role is to develop and implement the strategic direction, management and delivery of services to councils on HR, Learning and Development and Councillor Development. She ensures that the interests of councils in the region are represented in the development of national initiatives. Sam supports and advises the Regional Employers’ Board and is the Regional Secretary of the Employers’ Side of the Regional Joint Council, working to promote positive relations with trade unions across the East Midlands.

Lisa Butterfill

HR, Learning and
Development Manager

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Lisa leads on Learning and Development, organisational development and Councillor Development - identifying future HR and Learning and Development issues relevant to local government and developing and delivering relevant programmes, projects, training, and initiatives to meet these needs.

Suzanne Boultby

HR, Learning and
Development Manager
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Suzanne leads on HR and employment issues. She identifies future HR and Learning and Development issues relevant to local government and developing and delivering relevant programmes, projects, training, and initiatives to meet these needs.

Migration Team

Brein Fisher

Regional Migration
Manager
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Brein heads the Strategic Migration Partnership for the East Midlands, which delivers several Home Office migratory schemes and additional schemes such as the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) and No Recourse to Public Funds.

Maria Brambles

Senior Resettlement
Policy Officer

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Lisa leads on Learning and Development, organisational development and Councillor Development - identifying future HR and Learning and Development issues relevant to local government and developing and delivering relevant programmes, projects, training, and initiatives to meet these needs.

Matthew Clarke

Senior UASC
Policy Advisor
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Matt leads on unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) policy for EMSMP, coordinating the region’s responses to UASC across the East Midlands and supporting policy and operational development in partnership with key stakeholders at the national, regional and local levels.
On behalf of the Home Office and working closely with local authorities, Matt oversees the transfer of unaccompanied children into the region through the National Transfer Scheme (NTS): in-country from local authorities with high numbers of unaccompanied children in care; and children arriving directly from overseas under the UK Resettlement Scheme.

Stuart Turner

UASC Programme
Manager

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Stuart is the Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC) Programme Officer at East Midlands Councils and is responsible for the design, development, and implementation of the regional UASC programme as part of the wider work of the East Midlands Strategic Migration Partnership (EM SMP).
The regional UASC programme aims to enhance the already strong working relationships between East Midlands authorities in the delivery of services to UASC to address the pressures on East Midlands authorities arising from an increased number of UASC being transferred to the region and to further improve outcomes for the UASC and former UASC care leavers who are cared for by East Midlands authorities.

Noel Oxford

ESOL Programme
Manager
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Noel is working to build a coordinated and strategic approach to the development of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) capacity in the East Midlands as a whole.
Mindful of the rapidly shifting landscape around migration over recent years, his objectives are to create strong regional governance including the voices, to improve connectivity and support fruitful conversations across the ESOL and wider migration sectors, to enable sharing of knowledge and good practice between localities and improve communications around ESOL, and to deploy practical bespoke solutions which increase and improve levels of provision, and to create efficiencies.

Richard Herrick

Resettlement
Policy Officer

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Richard is responsible for the strategic and operational delivery of asylum dispersal within the East Midlands.
Richard chairs a variety of strategic multi-agency groups relating to asylum dispersal including local and regional Multi-Agency Forums (MAFs) along with responding the queries and questions relating to asylum from a variety of public, private and voluntary sector partners.

Camila David

Resettlement
Policy Officer
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Coming soon

Elana Romahi

Resettlement
Policy Officer

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Elana is leading the region’s response to the Ukraine crisis, providing support to statutory, voluntary, and civil society partners around the East Midlands; coordinating strategic approaches between Local Authorities and providing a conduit link between Local Authorities and central government.

Sarika Kohli

Immigration
Solicitor
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Sarika's role is to provide legal Advice on strategic immigration matters to the SMP, with specific knowledge and experience on matters affecting the function of Children’s Services.

Isobel Westbury

Programme and Policy Officer

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Isobel supports the coordination and delivery of regional projects and programme evaluation, providing operational support to the Strategic Migration Team. This includes data collection, analysis and assistance with project development work relating to asylum and refugee resettlement in the East Midlands.

Business Support Team

Lisa Bushell

Business Support
Manager & Events Lead
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Lisa supports the administration needs of East Midlands Councils, managing the Corporate Services Team and coordinating EMCs various CPD Programmes.
Lisa is also responsible for dealing with all aspects of finance including purchase orders, invoicing and dealing with queries.

Lisa Hopkins

Business Support
Officer

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Lisa supports EMC’s Executive Director, as well as facilitating the EMC Management Group, Executive Board and Full EMC meeting, overseeing the annual nomination process and Expressions of Interest to Boards.

Mila Pereira

Business Support
Officer
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Mila supports local authority members with their HR and learning and development needs, providing information requests to authorities & assistance with keeping them up to date.
Mila also supports the Director of Policy & Infrastructure.

Anna Anderson

Business Support
Officer

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Anna supports the Migration team, facilitating events and coordinating training as well as liaising and developing effective working relationships with local authorities, partners, and key stakeholders.

Communications and Marketing

Rachael Pengelly

Communications and
Marketing Manager
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Rachael Pengelly

Rachael is responsible for leading on all of East Midlands Councils' communications and engagement activity, raising our local and national profile across our core responsibilities and promoting our services to member councils and partners.
Rachael oversees the EMC website and social media channels.

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